D&D 5E [5E Build] The Arcane Juggernaut

Yeah, I understand the Darkness combo, but it takes a lot to make it work. 2 levels of Sorcerer or 3 levels of Warlock, both requiring a Charisma investment, and at least 2 levels of Rogue for cunning action so you can re-hide every turn. Realistically, that works out to three levels of Rogue, since you'll need the Swashbuckler archetype to really make it work. So that's 5-6 levels just for the ability to do something that is useless as often as Blur is (Blindsight is pretty common, and later on Truesight isn't unusual either), more if you count the possibility of someone just casting Daylight on you. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but I don't think it works that well for this build. This build kind of prefers being visible and threatening in order to draw the attention of enemies anyway.

DarkTechnomancer said:

Yeah, I understand the Darkness combo, but it takes a lot to make it work. 2 levels of Sorcerer or 3 levels of Warlock, both requiring a Charisma investment, and at least 2 levels of Rogue for cunning action so you can re-hide every turn. Realistically, that works out to three levels of Rogue, since you'll need the Swashbuckler archetype to really make it work.

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No need for swashbuckler. You need to see an enemy to make an OA against it.

So that's 5-6 levels just for the ability to do something that is useless as often as Blur is (Blindsight is pretty common, and later on Truesight isn't unusual either), more if you count the possibility of someone just casting Daylight on you. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but I don't think it works that well for this build. This build kind of prefers being visible and threatening in order to draw the attention of enemies anyway.

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Blurr is also defeated by blindsight and truesight.
And are they really that common? I don't think I've seen any creature, or player, with daylight.

Plus darkness and blur are both level 2 spells. So it takes an additional 2 levels of rogue over the 3 levels of a caster you would need for blurr anyways, which could be a bladesinger. So it's not really impeding lower level stuff, it's just an optional extension of what you already have. You also get a nastier OA with sneak attack.

I . . . guess I don't quite understand the point of this build. You take 16 Int so you can dip a couple of levels in wizard and get bladesong, for +3 AC and a +3 bonus to concentration saves while it's active. Why not dump Int and take 16 in Con? Compared to 12 Con, that gives you +2 HP per level (plus whatever you get from taking a level in a class other than wizard), and a +2 to all Con saves and Con checks, without needing to activate anything?

How is the arcane juggernaut the superior option for any multiclass that doesn't otherwise have a use for Int?

Swashbuckler can already sneak attack with OA most of the time. Blur is easier to use effectively than Darkness. You need the ability to see in Darkness as well, which means at least two more levels of multi-classing (Shadow Sorcerer technically has the ability at first level, but can only apply it to Darkness cast with Sorcery points, which they don't get until 2), and charisma requirements on an already very MAD build. Ditching Cleric and Wisdom entirely for Charisma-based alternatives is certainly something to consider, but I think I'd need more than just Darkness combo to justify the loss of both Bless and Shield of Faith.

My experience with Blindsight might be skewed by the fact that I've been playing a lot of Underdark campaigns, but it seems like half the enemies I run into have some way around Blur or Invisibility.

Cognomen's Cassowary said:

I . . . guess I don't quite understand the point of this build. You take 16 Int so you can dip a couple of levels in wizard and get bladesong, for +3 AC and a +3 bonus to concentration saves while it's active. Why not dump Int and take 16 in Con? Compared to 12 Con, that gives you +2 HP per level (plus whatever you get from taking a level in a class other than wizard), and a +2 to all Con saves and Con checks, without needing to activate anything?

How is the arcane juggernaut the superior option for any multiclass that doesn't otherwise have a use for Int?

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By level 20 that bonus will be +5, since it continues to invest in intelligence. The Eldritch Knight obviously does well in this build, which is why it's one of my examples. You have to remember than in bounded accuracy a stackable +5 to AC is absurd. By using Blur or any other effect to give disadvantage to your opponents (or hell, even the Lucky feat) you becomes almost hilariously difficult to hit. I don't know if it is strictly better than having more HP and better Con saves, but there is more to survival that just a big HP pool.

DarkTechnomancer said:

I don't know if it is strictly better than having more HP and better Con saves, but there is more to survival that just a big HP pool.

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. . . and there's more to survival than a high AC and a bonus to saves to maintain concentration, for a maximum of two minutes between rests.

An eldritch knight using this dip gains only 3 AC, and only 1 at the start, since bladesong precludes the use of a shield. Donning and doffing a shield each requires an action, so this build likely actually gives the knight -2 AC whenever bladesong is not active, or else he or she will be spending actions shuffling equipment. He or she has also probably lost 1 AC by choosing to concentrate on Dex over Str, though there are other trade-offs there. The knight is what, 7th(?) character level before getting an ASI, which means that, compared to a single-classed Dex-based fighter, he or she has effectively -1 AC, -1 to hit, and -1 to Dex saves from 4th to 5th, -2 to those things at 6th, and then back to -1 at 7th. The single-classed fighter, having maxed Dex, will take a feat at 8th or put the ASI into Int or Con. The arcane juggernaut will catch up in number of attacks at 8th character level and in Dex at 9th. It will catch up in total ASIs/feats at 11th but again fall behind in number of attacks. It will then fall behind in ASIs/feats again at 12th and never catch up. It will catch up in number of attacks at 14th but never get the fourth attack at 20th.

Booming blade is a spell I love for certain builds, but it doesn't play nice with either multiple attacks or dual wielding, which is one of the big design flaws in the single-class bladesinger. The war magic feature makes it appealing for a Dex-based sword-and-board eldritch knight or a Str-based one swinging a two-hander, but you are proposing neither of those. Even if you only intend to use booming blade in opportunity attacks, you can get the war caster feat at a lower level by sticking to a single class.

Blur is an okay spell if you have moderate AC, but its value lessens as your AC goes up. At the AC levels you are shooting for, you're better off spending that spell slot on mirror image and using your concentration for something else--in fact, mirror image is flat out the better spell unless you're planning to face a lot​ of attacks. Even saving the spell slot to cast shield if it's needed is probably a better move than casting blur. An eldritch knight expecting to face several attackers can cast blade ward and still get an attack with war magic.

I'm not someone who thinks that every character needs to be optimized, but what I'm driving at is that you need to actually make a comparison or an argument beyond "it's really high AC" to show that your build is anything more than a gimmick.

Well that is a lot to cover, but I really appreciate the feedback. This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for. I'll try to cover my reasoning from the start of your post, but feel free to point out anything I miss.

First, the shield. It's true that the build has less AC without Bladesong than a build using a shield would, and while carrying a shield as a backup is possibly, as you describe it would be pretty clunky. This is why I recommend a feat like Alert if you anticipate being ambushed a lot, or if you don't have a good spotter in your party. 1 AC is a pretty significant boost at early levels, and +3 is nothing to scoff at in the late ones. There is a reason why the designers are careful to keep boosts to AC locked behind "setters" like Mage Armor and Unarmored Defense, or other special clauses like with Barkskin. It's because even small boosts to AC are extremely powerful under the design philosophy of bounded accuracy. Even the most powerful monsters in the game have less than a +20 to hit against AC.

I am not sure what you mean by losing 1 AC by choosing to focus on Dex. Armor-types are actually pretty bizarrely balanced. Most of them reach 20 with varying levels of investment. Heavy Armor requires the smallest investment (unless you count money), but any armor has a hard time pushing past 20 without magical items. The trade-off there is that Str builds can focus more on damage, since the weapons and features for Str weapons provide way better DPR. With nothing more than Mage Armor or Sorcerer Scales and +3 dex, you're already at 16 AC, same as you'd get from Chainmail or Scale.

Delayed ASIs and features are something that any build which uses multi-classing has to deal with, unless they take all their dips post-16, which is rarely practical. Honestly, I can't really defend that. It's just a fact, and it is up to the player to decide if delaying those features is worth multi-classing. Similarly, many multi-classing characters lose-out on total ASIs compared to single-classes. Maining fighter, this one still gets a total of 6, which is only one fewer than a regular fighter. You could skip cleric, and just go Fighter/Wizard, then you'd miss none, though you'd lose your second action surge, which is a bummer. Rogue variant still gets 5, which is again only one fewer that a rogue would normally get.

Booming Blade is an awesome spell, but you're right, it doesn't play nice with fighter, nor any other class that gets extra attacks. For fighter, you pretty much just take it because what else are you really going to take as a cantrip on a gish? I think rogue variants do a much better job of abusing Booming Blade. It may actually be the better way to run the build, since a lot of its other features help cover weaknesses. I've been playing the fighter example that I listed, and until I got my extra attacks, Booming Blade was fantastic for when I needed my bonus action elsewhere.

For Blur...I never loved it in the first place, but I can't help but think you are wrong about how you value it. Actually I think you value Mirror Image incorrectly, too. But I don't want to be rude about it, so let me try to explain my reasoning. Mathematically, Blur (or more specifically, forcing disadvantage) is more powerful with every point of AC you have. If they already have a 95% chance of hitting you, then they have a 90% chance of hitting you with disadvantage, but if they have a 50% chance to hit you, then with disadvantage they have only a 25% chance. So with every point of AC, the difference between chance to hit normally, and chance to hit with disadvantage increases. With Mirror Image, the images AC is only 10+Dex, so with very high AC, you're likely to lose images to attacks that wouldn't have even hit you.

What kind of comparisons would you like me to make? Admittedly, high AC is pretty much the main target of the build. The game is balanced around an expectation that you'll only be able to get AC to a certain height. This build seeks push AC outside of those expectations without crippling every other aspect of the character.

Yes, 1 AC at 1st level and 3 AC at 20th are not nothing, but the flip side is that -2 whenever bladesong is not active is also not nothing. The alert feat solves only one of the problems of that -2 AC, and only in games where feats are allowed, and the player has to play variant human to get it without delaying ASIs, which in turn lowers AC.

You're right about armor types; I was thinking that mage armor was 12 + Dex. Brain fart. Edit: Though it has just occurred to me that a fighter wearing armor instead of using mage armor could take the defense fighting style to gain +1 AC. That would give plate an advantage at the highest levels, and perhaps other armors earlier depending on how much money the PCs have to throw around. /Edit

By delaying ASIs, you negate that +1 AC bonus you got from the bladesinger dip from 4th through 8th levels on the eldritch knight, and that's just one of the drawbacks of having lower Dex. Compared to your build, a single-class eldritch knight in that range has +3 AC generally, the same AC when bladesong is active, +1 to hit, and +1 to dex saves. At 6th level, it has an additional +1 AC, +1 to hit, and +1 to Dex saves, and at 8th it has +1 Con, +1 Int or a feat. Your build provides +1 AC part time until 4th level and then doesn't do so again until 9th. That's a pretty big problem.

The build might work better with rogue, but so do most builds. Rogue is up there with warlock among the best multiclassing options.

What you say about blur is correct, up to the point that you consider. If an enemy has a 50% chance to hit you, blur will reduce it to 25%, which is equivalent to 5 AC. However, if you have an AC of 26, an enemy needs to have a +15 to have a 50% chance to hit you. You're talking about reaching that AC at 14th level, while only monsters around CR 21 and higher have that kind of to-hit mod. Most of the time, you are going to be facing enemies with a lower chance of hitting you. Around CR 14, you're looking at the neighborhood of +10, around a 25% chance to hit. So, with blur, that becomes a 6.25% chance to hit, your gain equivalent to 3.75 AC. Against swarms of mooks with only a 5% chance to hit you in the first place, blur is worth less than 1 AC. This is why I say that blur loses value at the kind of AC you are talking about.

Mirror image isn't spectacular at those AC levels, either, but it has the advantage of not being a concentration spell, hence having no chance to break if you're caught in a random dragon breath or cone of cold, or if you're hit by a status effect, or if you cast a concentration spell, or if you ready a spell. In fact, how are you even maintaining 26 AC with blur, if part of that AC is coming from shield of faith? Mirror image is also front loaded, such that its effective AC contribution is often higher than blur's for the first X attacks, depending on the to-hit mod of the attacker. Personally, though, I'd not cast either.

The comparisons you need to make are to single-classed characters and to multiclassed characters who take the wizard and cleric dips at different points. Is it really beneficial to an eldritch knight to get bladesong before having Dex maxed? Or, for that matter, before having Int maxed? Is it worth delaying extra attack? Uncanny dodge? ASIs and feats? Class archetype?

Suppose I started eldritch knight with 16 Dex, 16 Con, and 12 Int, maxed Dex at 6th, bumped up Int at 8th, and then dipped into wizard and ditched the shield at 9th. You need to make the comparison and discuss the differences in HP, AC, saves, spell levels, spell slots, play styles, etc., and then you need to make the case for your build in light of those facts. You need to demonstrate not only that your build actually does what you want it to, but that what is does is worthwhile, and that the investment in Int is worth the cost in Con for any character whose main class is not wizard. And you need to show that it works at every level, not just 20th.

I full admit to the weakness to being blindsided, or running out of Bladesong uses. The build can still function reasonably well at a range if it has to, or it can go the awkward route of carrying a backup shield. Plenty of optimized builds have similar weakness. Darkness Warlocks against enemies that don't need to see, or grapplers against enemies that are too big for example. You just have to have a plan for when your build isn't at its best.

I think the delayed ASIs is a part of why I chose to dual-wield in my fighter build. A variant human can take the Dual Wielder feat at first level and reduce the AC gap to only a short break-even period around 6th level. The other issues still exist, of course, but if we're comparing Bladesong to a shield, then it's like having a shield, dual wielder's +1 AC, and an extra attack. That's a pretty good deal, I think. Of course the part time issue exists, but careful management of your Bladesong uses can deal with that. Unless you have a mega brutal DM who rarely/never lets the party take short rests, in which case you may want to reconsider being a fighter at all, really.

Back to Blur again. Well I never really meant to imply that Blur would be maintained with 26 AC, I think that's probably impossible. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that 25 AC is the highest you can possibly get self-sufficiently without concentration or magic items. Frankly, I never really meant to imply that Blur should be relied upon at all, and that might warrant some rephrasing in the original post. That said, I don't think that trying to assign an AC-value to disadvantage really works the way you describe. Going back to your 5% mooks example, I don't know how Blur can be "worth less than 1 AC" in a situation where +1 AC would do literally nothing at all. I get that you are basically comparing chance to be hit before and after in absolute terms. So going from 5% to .25% is a difference of only 4.75% (less than 1 AC). That's an easy trap to get caught in, but the relative difference is much more significant. Consider the fractional forms of that same comparison. You're going from a 1/20 chance to 1/400. You're not 4.75% less likely to be hit, you're 95% less likely to get hit. AC-value comparisons pretty much stop working once any chance to hit goes below 5%, since AC literally can't do that.

I suppose it could be better to dip later. I am sure there are better ways to optimize the order in which levels are taken, but it sort of goes beyond the scope of what I had intended for this thread. I can try to draw up comparisons to single-classes and optimize the level order at some point. It would take quite a bit of time, though, especially since this is not a particularly rigid "build". It's more like a dip that fits a particular style of play, and some recommendations for how to accomplish that style in different classes. Perhaps I will add a section to talk about the playstyle of the build a bit more thoroughly.

DarkTechnomancer said:

I think the delayed ASIs is a part of why I chose to dual-wield in my fighter build. A variant human can take the Dual Wielder feat at first level and reduce the AC gap to only a short break-even period around 6th level.

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But you're back to using feats to smooth over shortcomings, which means either variant human or delayed ASIs.

I get that you are basically comparing chance to be hit before and after in absolute terms. So going from 5% to .25% is a difference of only 4.75% (less than 1 AC). That's an easy trap to get caught in, but the relative difference is much more significant.

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No, comparing the absolute value is not a trap. You state that, in the mook case, blur reduces your chance to be hit by 95%, and, once again, you are right but only as far as you consider it. In practical terms, you're getting a 95% reduction of a 5% chance to be hit. That is never going to be more valuable than a 50% reduction of a 50% chance to be hit. Unless your DM lets you spend relative spell slots, blur becomes less valuable as your opponents' chance to hit exceeds 50%.

I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to tear down the guide or the concept driving it, but that I just don't think you've given a concrete enough, comparison-driven explanation of why anyone should build a character this way.

I get that, and I thank you for the help/discussion. I don't think a completely comparison-driven explanation is plausible without committing to a single rigid way of building the character, which I'm not prepared to do. I will endeavor to improve the OP to hopefully better explain the capabilities of the build and compare it to other classes that seek to do the same.

I still think that it is unfair to value disadvantage only by its effect on effective AC. It downplays other important benefits, such as potentially pushing chances to hit below 5% and increased defense against critical hits. The build wants a lot of attacks to be directed at it and subsequently neutralized. I think that makes those benefits pretty important. I doubt we'll be able to agree on it, but I can definitely address the differences more thoroughly in the OP and let potential readers decide for themselves.

As an aside, if comparing to AC value, forced disadvantage only fails to exceed the value of Shield of Faith (+2 AC) against 19+ (10% or less chance to hit) attacks. If not for my misgivings about the dangers of sightless foes, Blur or Darkness would be the obvious choice. As it is, after this discussion I think I need to seriously reevaluate its worth.